This disclosure relates in general to stored value cards and, more specifically, but not by way of limitation, to contactless fare cards used in transit systems.
Transit systems use magnetic cards, smart cards and tokens to gain entry to the system. Stored value cards have an amount of credit associated with them. Some of these cards store the amount of credit available on the card in a magnetic strip, RFID tag, or a semiconductor chip. The interface to a fare card with semiconductor storage, i.e., a smart card, can be through contact with metal pads on the card or RFID. Smart cards that communicate with wireless RFID are called contactless smart cards.
Contactless smart cards require a user to place their card in close proximity to a RFID reader/writer. The reader identifies the contactless smart card. After additional credit is arranged, the writer adds the credit to the contactless smart card. This process may require the user to place their card proximate to the reader/writer twice. Where the second encounter doesn't occur or there is some other problem writing information to the contactless smart card, the credit may not be properly applied even though paid for.
In the appended figures, similar components and/or features may have the same reference label. Further, various components of the same type may be distinguished by following the reference label by a dash and a second label that distinguishes among the similar components. If only the first reference label is used in the specification, the description is applicable to any one of the similar components having the same first reference label irrespective of the second reference label.